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Using herbarium specimens to select indicator species for climate change monitoring

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Abstract

Phenology is one of the best indicators to observe plant responses to climate change and predict future changes in plant communities. Choosing indicator species to monitor biological responses to climate change may be improved if herbarium specimens are combined with ongoing monitoring efforts to understand phenological responses over longer periods. We analyzed herbarium specimen data from Colorado’s alpine region, as alpine areas are predicted to be especially sensitive to climate change. We assessed phenological patterns in relation to temperature and precipitation for 287 species and growing degree days (GDD) for 235 species. Average low temperature, maximum GDD, and average precipitation increased over the study period. As temperature and GDD increased, phenology advanced, but as precipitation increased, phenology was delayed. Even with this variability of environmental responses, a significant trend of earlier flowering appeared when all species were analyzed together. Of the species that showed significantly earlier flowering dates, they advanced on average more than 39 days over the 61 years of the study. When assessing only specimens of species monitored in a national program (USA National Phenology Network), we found that these species showed similar trends to the entire dataset. When selecting species for ongoing monitoring efforts, herbarium specimens are an important resource to incorporate historical patterns into assessments of climate change and phenological drivers.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our long-time volunteer, Mo Ewing, for helping to pull together the data used in these analyses and reviewer comments that improved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rebecca A. Hufft.

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Communicated by David Hawksworth.

Electronic supplementary material

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Online Resource 1. Methods used to refine taxonomy of specimens used in analyses. Supplementary material 1 (PDF 91 kb)

10531_2018_1505_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

Online Resource 2. Species used in the study including authority, family, life history, NPN status, and whether the species was included in analyses of GDD. Results of all regression analyses per species by year, TAmax, TAmin, PA, and GDD. Supplementary material 2 (XLSX 86 kb)

10531_2018_1505_MOESM3_ESM.xlsx

Online Resource 3. Breakpoint analysis for climate variables over time and first and mean reproductive date by year and climate variables. Supplementary material 3 (XLSX 11 kb)

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Hufft, R.A., DePrenger-Levin, M.E., Levy, R.A. et al. Using herbarium specimens to select indicator species for climate change monitoring. Biodivers Conserv 27, 1487–1501 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1505-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1505-2

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